Legend Of The Guardians: Brink Of Annihilation
by jc1424
Summary: It has been months since the end of the Pure Ones. Soren's gizzard begins to sense trouble coming. Internal conflicts build up in him as Nyra and Kludd might just be planning something on the guardians and he begins to wonder if there will always be a friendship between him and Otulissa, fearing more... or less.
1. Daymare

Soren_ was airborne, chasing someone through a heavy rain. He could see their tail feathers, twisting and turning in an attempt to disturb his current through the wind. At the same time, he was calling something out to the other owl, but could not even comprehend the words, himself. Soren seemed, in a way, paralyzed, without control of his own movements. Everything in his vision was a blur. By now, Soren realized that it was a dream. But, who, in the name of Glaux, was he after?_

_As he trailed the other owl, he noticed his emotion, that had automatically applied to the dream, was not anger, nor will power, nor strength. He felt desperate, as if he wanted to stop the other to speak with them._

_Suddenly, he could hear words, but they were not his. The voice was coming from every direction. He knew someone was trying to wake him from his state, and that they were probably worried, but he just wanted to stay... long enough to know who he was trying to get to._

_He tried increasing his pace to catch the other owl. He strained until he was just a few owl-lengths behind the other owl. He could now see that it was another Barn Owl, flying before him. The wind and rain was beating against Soren, slowing him down._

_The voice began to break through his daymare, into words he understood._

_"Soren!... Soren!... _SOREN!" It was Gylfie, his best friend, the elf owl, that was screaming his name out, in a struggle to wake him.

The daymare had come to an end and he was in the hollow in which he, Gylfie, Digger, and Twilight rested in. His feathers were well-ruffled and his eyes wide. The Band was staring at him, their faces expressing fear.

"Soren you had us worried sick!", Gylfie said to him. "My Glaux, what were dreaming of?"

"I was..." He did not remember. _It was just seconds ago! How can I not remember? _"I can't recall it."

"Well, Soren, you were hollering it all out. You kept on saying 'stop' and 'wait'. You were trembling in your sleep."

Soren did not have any explanation to it. He closed his eyes to run some thoughts through his mind in the next few seconds. "Guys,... sometimes dreams mean things and sometimes they... don't. But, it really isn't something to be concerned about right now."

"But, Soren, if it did mean something,... that's usually when they foreshadow things that eventually happen in our future."

"Little owl, big mouth...", Twilight mumbled to himself. Apparently, Gylfie found it audible and she was displeased more than usual. She puffed up in anger, but simply turned to him and stuck her tongue out, a very uncommon action from an owl. Her mood quickly returned as she turned back to Soren, who was just smiling grimly at her comical tantrum.

"I know, but... I don't remember any of it. I'll come to when... or _if_ that moment happens." After that brief, yet serious conversation, they paused awkwardly for some time.

"So...", Twilight began, startling the others, "how's about **tweener**, everyone?"

Soren exited his silent state. "Of course!", he said. "I'm flying on an empty gizzard. C'mon!" With that, Soren took air under his wings, a relieving feeling after having been in shuteye for the main eight hours of the day. The band, not followed by Mrs. P yet, went along.

Soren looked to the skies as he left the hollow. _I just never get used to the beauty of the tree, the sky, the water, Otulissa's hollow..._ He suddenly stopped thinking about home, and had his mind focused on Otulissa and her flower-filled hollow, which was only a fair distance below from his. She was obviously eating tweener already, for she was not in her hollow. He really wanted to ask her if he could be invited in for observation of her wonderful home, but he lacked the nerve and the courage in his gizzard to ask. He feared she would not approve of visitors, even him.

Ever since he and the band had arrived at the tree, Otulissa had seen him as a close friend. Her elegance amazed him, regardless if she did often come off as pushy and demanding. Not only was she a _wonder_ of beauty, her _sense_ of it was also miraculous. In his friendship, he knew the beauty would fade as he grew used to seeing it. But, Soren told himself that he would not let it become the base of their relationship. If so, the relationship, itself, would eventually be destroyed. All it would take is time. Yet, the time that they kill keeps them alive, and time, whether wasted or well-spent, is still time. The possible bliss in ignorance, from deciding not to let his desires get the best of him, might not even be worth it. Though, there is the chance that he truly admired her beyond lust...

The eyes of Soren suddenly took vision, even though they were already opened, as he landed. His thoughts caused him to black out. Gylfie, Digger, and Twilight followed behind him, as they walked over to the table Mrs. P, also known as 'Mrs. Plithiver', had formed for them. She held their meal, a few mice and some small pottery cups of tea, over her scales.

"Soren,", Mrs. P spoke, as the owls relaxed. "Otulissa told me as she headed off for tweener that when she woke up she heard you having daymares. And, she wasn't the only one who is worried..."

"Yes, ma'am.", he sighed. "It happens, but I can't recall it at the time. I obviously shouldn't let it get in the way of things."

"You are right, my dear but... if this becomes reoccurring, I recommend you advise your father or Ezylryb. It'd definitely have meaning, then."

"Yes, Mrs. P." Soren drifted off into thought, once again, as the others just spoke in conversation without him. He had fear in the marrow of his gizzard, now. As much as he did not want to let these dreams get to him, he could not deny that they _had _to have meaning. Things had been calm ever since the power of the Pure Ones was brought to an end,... until now.

* * *

**tweener - **the evening meal; the first food owls consume after waking


	2. Internal Conflict

_I'm starving and the winter is creeping up like a predator. _Kludd longed to get air beneath his wings, but his right wing still remained dislocated, and he could not touch it in fear of the pain it always was to do so. He simply let it lay in his other wing, limply. He spent each and every day dragging his claws across the dirt and ashes, his mind stuttering upon whether he should continue to attempt to find his Queen or turn back to seek refuge, with the idea in mind that Nyra might find him useless. _Maybe I can convince her that the blackness of my soul still longs to take the life of my brother._

His mind suddenly stopped focusing on how to be taken in by Nyra, and started trying to unravel the fact that Soren actually tried to save his life, even after him trying to rip out his gizzard, as he was driven by his anxiety to avenge the beliefs of the Pure Ones. Aside from not standing with him and the other Tytos, and always shadowing him by their father, who was always lecturing him, Kludd thought of him and what he had tried to do. _It doesn't make any sense! Why try to save me? I called you 'weak'! Maybe he was just too weak to let me die... or was he strong enough to forgive me for the angst that I threw at him? SOREN IS WEAK! HE ALWAYS HAS BEEN!_ But, he had that tinge of belief that kept telling him that Soren has always been the one with a _humble_ heart and what not. _As if it is even possible to remain both humble, and strong. __He _cannot _be proof that something so... stupid, can be possible!_ At this period in time, Kludd felt like he had misplaced himself and that he was being ignorant to his gizzard. He just knew already that he was simply ignorant to the idea of not being ignorant. His brain-work snapped, as a headache began to come in. He now found himself walking, mind now empty and inactive, as he blankly stared ahead into the shadow of the day, and trudged on.

* * *

"Soren!", Ezylryb screeched once again.

"Ah! Um... sir?", he replied, after being lost in his worried thoughts.

"How can one determine how long it'll be 'til it rains when the clouds are grey?"

"Uh... a sudden... change in the... wind speed... ?" His answer wasn't exactly correct to its question and immediately after, Otulissa, who was standing a short distance ahead of him, held a wing into the air, obviously knowing the answer to that question and several more.

"As much as I desire to not let Otulissa give it all away, that answer really does not answer the question, Soren. I will speak to you after class. Now, pay attention." He briefly paused before pointing to Otulissa, allowing her to speak.

"Our ears can hear past the common range by about twenty-five percent.", she began. "The echo of the precipitation piercing the air and surface can be heard from an even larger distance. We can't make a very close estimate to time unless we put in an average, but we are close to finding out by knowing how far away it is, just from hearing the sound. And, the percent of rain can play a part in the equation as well by-"

"_WONDERFUL_ observation Otulissa! You've made over a million points, when all _I _asked of you was one! Most of the time you spend speaking should be spent determining what you don't even need to tell us." He rolled his eyes after making his last statement.

"Oh, um... oops. S-s-sorry."

"Nevertheless, she is right. We can hear farther, so we have our own natural instinct to tell us how much time we have. Other racdrops such as wind and how hard the weather is can make it be off from time to time. It seems that we've run out of time for this class today. You're all dismissed." As the students began to leave, he notified all that were chawed into Weather Interpretation that they would be going for a demonstration flight at dawn into what would be the heaviest downpour in months, for observation.

Soren remained perching before Ezylryb, waiting for the rest of the students to leave the hollow.

"Soren,", Ezylryb began, "what has been troubling you, lately?"

Soren looked respectively into his tired, but attentive eyes. He knew that if he had to tell anyone at all, Lyze was definitely not someone to leave out. He could be trusted with the best of answers. "I've begun to have daymares.", he responded. "It's been a very long period of time since the battle was fought. I don't know exactly what made this dream a daymare, but it felt like one. It was just a feeling, within the dream, of..." Soren wanted the word the finish the statement, but the proper term was not existent in his mind, at the time. He gave up and used a word not so much vague, but unused. "...wrongness." It was so unused, _anyone_ could have pinpointed that he was highly frustrated. "And, when I woke, that feeling was all that remained and it's been there ever since."

Ezylryb placed his wing behind Soren, just for a gesture of reassurance. "Soren, you must understand: even after a battle, even an entire war, peace won't last very long if there be any at all. The chances your gizzard did this to your slumber out of mere boredom, and meant nothing whatsoever, are slim to none. There isn't much you can do in the time it takes for whatever you were warned of to add up, that'll affect it. You must let the issue slip your mind, so you can live your life the way it's meant to be, until the time comes for duty. It's a cycle for us guardians. We live, we survive, we live, we survive... Don't let those two get confused."

"Yes, sir. Thanks. Things are getting clear for me again."

"As you were."


	3. Crack Of Dawn

The words Lyze said to Soren echoed through his mind to no end. The logic behind it all was crystal-clear to him, and he focused on the present for the sake of progress in his life. Soren had just exited the hollow Ezylryb taught in, and flew upright toward a hollow he admired dearly. It was that of Otulissa, the one owl who embraced the literature and treasured her presence at the tree more than anyone else. Soren had only heard of the spectacular interior the hollow had; he had never truly seen it before. He knew she was off for the next couple of hours, and now was his chance to finally make a knock at her entrance. Now that Soren considered it, he had not spoken with her in a long period of time. She would definitely be overwhelmed to have him as a guest. _Maybe she wants me to be her guest just I do..._

All he anticipated would soon unfold, as he lightly tapped with his talon at the entrance to her hollow. _Eh... what am I supposed to say!? _Otulissa came flying toward him, and her beak formed a smile immediately.

"Soren... what is it?", she inquired.

"I... wanted to know if it would be okay if I were to admire your hollow."

"Oh... heh, of course; few do, but I know that a lot actually want to.", she churred.

Soren knew what she meant by that; she gets few visitors and has the whole hollow to herself. "It's very beautiful... You tend to all this?"

"Yes. The flowers, the butterflies, and even those noisy bugs that keep me up throughout the day sometimes."

"I can understand how annoying that must be." He took his focus off of the surrounding garden, and figured it would be best to put some manners in his visit. "We haven't spoken in ages; how've you been?"

"I know, and I've been fine. The disappointment in not being placed in Navigation was actually quite depressing... But, it is what it is; there is a reason for everything, and lessons always wind up getting learned sooner or later, for me."

"I suppose you're right,... and at least we're both in Weather and Colliering."

Otulissa's eyes glinted at those words, as if nothing could've sounded better at the moment. "And isn't it rather odd that we're creatures of the night, but this is what we still call 'the bright side' of things?"

Soren verbally agreed, and began to wander around the hollow, specifically to look at some of the flowers. "Otulissa?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you... work hard to be... perfect?"

"Is that something you believe me to be, or do you think I'm not smart enough to realize that I'm merely an owl in millions, and can only do so much?"

"In one way, yes to both; but in another, no because I know your intellect so well at this point."

"Why Soren,... that is one hell of a compliment; thank you!" She closed hers eyes as her feathers riffled (in what other cases would be called a blush).

"So welcome, but still...", he smiled then.

"I know that the idea of being perfect is _preposterous_, but... I still believe there is a benefit in trying to be."

"That is right of you, but haven't others opted out of respecting you for who you are and all that you do?"

"I keep on telling myself that someday they will all understand, but... every time I turn my back, someone... has something to say." With frustration, she flew to a branch near the entrance of hollow to gaze out.

Soren flew to that same branch and perched aside her. He placed a wing around her and thought: _what good a friend would I be to make my own side and tell her she doesn't_ have_ to do it? _"You've done and you're doing a great job; I'm sure, somewhat like you said before, that it will all pay off eventually."

She looked at him as if she had never had so much hope in her life, and hugged him tightly. "Soren, you're the best friend I've ever had, and I'd also like to apologize for not having spoke with you for quite some time."

"Never mind time; I'll always support you. But I must know... Have you anything to ask of me?"

She thought about it. "Yes, but... I'm simply unprepared to ask."

"But isn't now the time to prepare yourself?"

"I'm Otulissa; things are _never _that simple."

Soren churred and kept his wing around her, while enduring the soft breeze that blew through his feathers. For quite some time, that was all the two did. They could see light at the edge of the horizon, meaning it was about time for dinner.

"Well, I'm off to dinner;" Soren started, "would you like to be my guest? I'm eating with my family."

"That'd be lovely, especially considering we haven't exactly become acquainted yet."

* * *

Kludd walked through the shadows of the grey morning in an abandoned cave. The darkness came to a stop before him, as the cave ended and light finally hit the surface. He looked to the pale atmosphere and saw it covered with storm clouds. His gizzard told him to stay in the cave and wait for the weather to pass. Sadly, having not eaten in three days, Kludd debated whether or not to continue for food, while his stomach churned desperately. _I am brave... Be brave, then! _He made his decision, and stepped forward.

Within minutes, the sky began to crack with thunder. Kludd knew rain would soon come heavily. For so long his wing was broken, now. He only wished he could fly to the nearest meal in time to not be drenched in the water that would fall from the clouds shortly. Focus was key in the moment; his hearing and his mind connected in a way like never before. While not moving any muscles or plumage, he held his breath and closed his eyes. Kludd endured the echo of every sound that made its way into his ear channels.

At the exit of the cave there was a river farther below. Lifeless vegetation dully decorated the horizon. Maybe this precipitation would introduce a new beginning to this environment, so burnt away. He searched for a repetitious interval of sound: a heartbeat. The hollow crack of wood as the wind blew through it was the first sound for him to ignore. The water that flowed in the current of the ravine showed no consistency, and he tuned it out.

Kludd's heartbeat fought with another. It seemed to be coinciding with his at a rate of once every twenty seconds. This rodent was on foot, but poorly traveling across dead leaves and dirt. It was indeed a large rat, approximately ten seconds away from being out of his ears' reach.

Kludd opened his eyes in the direction of the noise to see it scampering briefly out of darkness, and back into a crevice. He sped down a pile of gravel, eyes locked onto the paths the rat could take from the crevice. It emerged from a hole not too distant. Kludd jumped from a rock and chased the rodent down on foot. Just as he lunged forward with his talons extended, thunder cracked the morning and broke his focus. He fell to the ground, getting a face full of dirt.


	4. Breath

**This chapter was inspired by the song by Breaking Benjamin.**

The thunder was the beginning of a heavy downpour. Rain drenched Kludd's feathers, pulling him down to the surface even harder. He no longer had the strength to rise up from his fall, for he was not paralyzed, but weak. He wanted so terribly to lift face from the dust and ashes it was shoved into, which was gradually becoming mud. His misery and tears had nowhere to go, and Kludd could tell the toll of his life would soon be taken. _Glaux..._

His talons involuntarily began to twitch.

* * *

Soren and Otulissa landed in the dining area where many groups were once again conversating with one another and consuming meals. Soren spotted his mother, father, sister, and nestmaid in a corner, laughing about something. He pointed toward them for her to see, and they then walked over to his family.

Marella was the first to notice him heading their way. "Soren my dear, how have you been this night?"

"Splendid, really. I would like for you to all officially meet my... um... good friend Otulissa."

"Hey guys, it's fantastic to finally get to know you all.", Otulissa spoke, waving a wing.

"You're...", Eglantine, Soren's younger sister attempted to say, "you're... a genius, right?"

Otulissa barely managed to maintain a giggle at that statement from his sibbling. "I guess you could say that,..."

"Eglantine is my name, but Egg is fine!", she piped back in her slowly maturing voice.

"Well, nice to meet ya Egg! And, I really hope we get to know each other more soon."

Though Mrs. P already had met Otulissa in her dining service at the tree, they continued to have their meal together and she also discussed simple things regarding who Marella and Noctus were. Soren wanted to speak with Otulissa eventually about his somewhat older brother, but it was difficult for him to bring it up.

In some period of time rain would begin to pour down over the Ga'Hoolian area. While most were entering the hollows, preparing for another day sleep, rhythmed by the rain hitting the tree's branches and leaves, outside a hollow a few were standing, prepared to lift off into the overcast morning. Ezylryb stood before them all as an instructor and informed them of their goal in this morning's quest.

"I am going to put you in groups of three, and you will then trade the experiences of position in triangular flight formation. Once we have taken a few minutes to all understand it, I will put you in groups of four. Now, there are indeed only eleven of you, but I make tw- well... heheh, I'll just say eleven and a half; that count is fine by me."

Otulissa looked at Soren who was laughing, and just smirked and rolled her eyes.

The clouds left the sky with nothing but grey, no light in sight. The leaves around them began to rustle with the wind blowing ever so hard. And this breeze pushed through all of the owls' feathers, making them impatient and desperate to open their wings and let the currents guide them effortlessly. Ezylryb started to call their names individually as they took off, making sure no one was missing, as he would before and after a flight. The sky began to shoot bolts of lightning in the distance and seconds later came the thunder. All of them had finally become airborne. The downpour once heard from so far had in time traveled to the tree. While these owls took flight without a care in the world for their own lives, another was most likely going to fail to keep his...

* * *

Kludd's talons were involuntarily twitching, but he could feel it. He could control them in some way. His brain pondered at whether he was dying or not. _Are these nimble nerves giving in? This can't be happening! I can move these talons! GET UP! _Kludd's soul fought his muscles, arguing that they rise him off the ground. The ignorance of his strength made him scream and suffer as he attempted to lift himself from the mud that had him appearing more like a Spotted Owl at this point. The water that had him drenched gave him a cold that seemed to tear at the skin beneath his feathers. Regardless, with one talon free from whatever he had been holding on to, he lifted his body from the surface to see his other grasping a large rat. After what Kludd had just been through, he could tell this rat had a lot less life left in it than him.

To the distance he glared and screeched, "YOU DID THIS! YOU WILL PAY!"

* * *

"Dear Glaux, the ease of flight mesmerizes me tremendously!", Otulissa said as she flew behind Soren in a diamond formation. The wind currents and precipitation pushed against their faces. Ezylryb ordered them to rotate every few minutes so they wouldn't get worn out so rapidly. They were nearly done with this routine, and would soon be returning to the tree.

"While the pressure the one in back feels might be weak, keep in mind that the other up front faces the complete opposite!", Ezylryb hollered. He then ordered them to do a double rotation.

"Sir, I see what you are doing! And I can assure you I was not taking being in back for granted!", Otulissa claimed. Ezylryb rolled his eyes and released an amused grunt.

After just a few more minutes, he ended the flight so the owls could get some sleep. They were only out for an hour or so. As expected, once the owls got back to the hollow they left from, they all desperately wanted to dry off and relax. Ezylryb officially dismissed them all; he was much less affected by the weather than they were.

Soren flew down toward his hollow to see all of his friends asleep. He quietly walked across the hollow to his large nest. He immediately sighed in relief once he settled down.

The moss was so soft.


End file.
